The Bridge of Death
by Wpnfire
Summary: NOTE: I understand the title is lame, as well as the cover. On his way to disabling the phase pulse generators, John must cross a skybridge inhabited by Covenant, endless waves of flood, and an energy sword wielding zealot. Based on the mission Two Betrayals in Halo 1.
1. The bridge

Bullet casings fell and rattled on the ground and the spitting of gunfire echoed off the walls as Master Chief stopped firing and quickly scanned the area for movement. Covenant bodies, flood combat forms, and blood and gore from both pooled in puddles on the ground. Nothing moved, and John began to walk towards the exit as he ejected the magazine from his MA5B, inserted a new one, and pulled the charging handle to chamber a round.

John was down to his last mag, and checked the corpses for more. He found an MA5B lodged inside a ruptured chest cavity of a flood combat form, and yanked the weapon out of the creature.

"Well, there's a stroke of good luck." Cortana commented.

The gun was covered in a sludgy substance from the inside of the creature.

"Well, maybe not."

John ignored Cortana's quip, and checked the ammo indicator on the weapon which showed the clip to be full. He stared at the weapon in disbelief...a full clip?

As if reading his mind Cortana noted, "Wait, so this gun was never fired, not even once? You're lucky, but you're not _this_ lucky."

Indeed, Master Chief agreed this had to be a sign of bad things to come, but he pushed the thought out of his mind. He carefully kept the slime from touching the clip as he pushed the magazine release and caught the clip as it fell from the weapon. John secured it, and continued on his way out of the room and down a twisting hallway. The hallway ended with a door, and John readied himself for anything.

He approached the door and it opened to reveal a blinding light and wind which blew snow through the doorway; he was back outside. John's heightened vision instantly adjusted to the glare, and he walked through the doorway. He recognized the area as the skybridge he walked on days earlier.

John immediately noticed that there was fighting going on, and ran to take cover behind the support towers for the bridge directly in front of him. Covenant were fighting flood who were shooting at them and jumping over from the skybridge that was directly parallel to the one John was on. He waited for the two sides to wear each other down before he withdrew from his cover and entered the fray.

John fired three bursts from his gun: the first one was aimed at a jackal, the second a grunt next to the jackal, and lastly a sustained burst at a flood creature attacking them. All three fell dead. John kept moving and took cover behind some of the structures on the bridge, as more of the Covenant and flood ahead of him fought to the death.

Suddenly, a combat form leaps from the other skybridge, and lands directly in front of John. He fires his gun on fullauto pointblank into the chest of the creature, and it fell dead. The ammo indicator on his gun lowered to 15, and John cursed himself for letting the creature surprise him and force him to waste valuable ammunition.

John peered around his cover to memorize the locations of his targets, and then left his cover to rush the remaining forces on the bridge. A combat form was in front of him, and John _shoved_ the creature off the bridge with all his strength. He then saw more Covenant in front of him, and carefully lined up his shots. Two grunts went down, 9 rounds left, a jackal, 5 rounds left, and another jackal, 1.

Another combat form leaps over from the other skybridge, and lands about 5 feet in front of John. It runs towards him in a frenzied attack. John aimed his gun at the abomination, and fired at its chest. The bullet pierced the parasite in the center of its chest, and killed it instantly.

John crouched and quickly reloaded his weapon with the mag he found earlier. After this, he peered across to the other bridge and realized all the flood on it had been killed, but by what? John stood up and continued to sweep the bridge. After checking the bridge, he determined it was clear.

As John continued to walk, he couldn't help but feel a bit despaired and angry. He suddenly stopped and watched the snow fall around him in silence, until Cortana's voice echoed through his consciousness, "You're not crazy, you know," she said, as if reading his mind.

"I know that. It's just...I can't help but feel like..." John began.

The Spartan looked around. Both bridges were quiet, and nothing moved except the snow falling down from the sky.

"Whatever you feel, it's understandable." Cortana said.

"Is it? I suppose it is. I fear I'm losing–

Suddenly, an elite vaults over one of the structures in front of Master Chief. The elite donned gold armor, and held an energy sword in his hand; a zealot. He came charging at John, who immediately opened fired on the elite, but the latter's shields were too strong and he quickly closed within striking distance. John realized too late that he could not dodge the elite's attack at this distance and with not enough room to maneuver in.

The elite pulled his arm back, ready to swing. John had no choice but to drop his MA5B and stop the attack with his bare hands. As the zealot swings his sword, John steps towards the elite and barely manages to grab the elite's arms in time to stop the attack. John puts every ounce of strength into repelling the elite's attack, but the zealot had the advantage in strength. The elite's sword moves closer and closer to John's neck. John hears the elite give a sinister sounding laugh, and out of the corner of his eye, John could see the energy sword glowing and humming ominously.

Suddenly, John hears gunfire, and sees the elite squirm as if the elite is being shot at. All of a sudden, the elite disengages from the struggle and turns to attack the combat form shooting at him. John, recovering from his near death experience, is a bit slow to grab his gun laying at his feet, and aim it at the zealot. Dots behind him appear on John's motion sensor, and he whirls around to see three or four flood combat forms racing towards him from the other side of the bridge.

_Shit_ John thought.

He opens fire on the combat forms with his MA5B, but is quickly overwhelmed. John takes a few steps back as the damned creatures kept getting closer to him. Bullet casings clang on the metallic surface of the bridge, but suddenly stop and are replaced by a clicking noise. John's gun was out of ammo. He takes his MA5B and uses it as a club to beat down a flood form who got within a meter of him.

Suddenly, two creatures attack John at once and one knocks John's weapon out of his hands. He shoves the creature away, and quickly draws his knife and stabs the other creature repeatedly till it falls dead. John grows weary of fighting and to his utter dismay, he sees an _entire army_ of combat forms pouring out of the other entrance to the bridge.

"Warning! Threat level increasing!" Cortana warns.

"Yeah? What tipped you off about that little Ms. sarcasm?" John replied.

Suddenly, four combat forms climb over a wall in front of John and leap at him. John draws his pistol and fires repeatedly, but it's hopeless. John prepares to fight the creatures, but he has no confidence it was a sure thing. Just then, the zealot appeared in front of Master Chief and sliced the air. The combat forms were all cut in half. Without turning around to look at him, the zealot motions at John to "come."

John immediately understood and moved to stand next to the zealot. He drew his pistol and his knife, and held them tactical style. Their fight could wait, they needed to win _this_ battle first.


	2. The alliance

Master Chief alternated between firing his pistol, and waiting for a combat form to close to knife it. It didn't matter how many of the creatures went down, more continued to pour onto the bridge. The slide on John's pistol locks open, and John ejects the cartridge, and reloads the weapon. He looked up and to his right to see the zealot.

Whereas John, without suitable weapons, could barely handle _one_ of the sickening flood forms, the zealot was easily able to dispatch three or four at a time. With one swipe of his energy sword, the zealot took out everything in front of him. John seriously considered letting the elite fight the flood himself, but then John saw something ahead of him that made him freeze.

Flood carrier forms containing the parasites themselves started to appear on the far end of the bridge. The zealot continued to dispatch wave after wave of the combat forms, but John could not see the zealot being as successful at killing the infection forms with his energy sword. They would be swarmed.

John fired at the pods with his pistol, and began to pick them off one by one. They exploded, releasing their contents of infectious bodies that grouped together with the combat forms to form a sea of flood. John chucks a grenade at the center of the gathering of flood. It explodes dead center, and bodies and gore are thrown every which way.

He checked his ammunition, he had one grenade left, two magazines of pistol ammunition, and his knife. This was piss poor equipment for fighting even regular humans, but he had to make it work against the flood somehow. More carriers appeared in the distance, and John fired on them again till they exploded.

John's pistol locked open, and he reloaded it once more. Once all the pods were gone, he chucked his last grenade into the gathering of flood. It explodes sending bodies hurdling through the air. John sees a shotgun fly over his head, and he jumps for it. John wraps his hand around the gun.

_Gotcha!_

John looks down to see that he has accidentally jumped off the bridge. He scrambles to grab onto the edge of the bridge as he falls rapidly downward. John reaches out with his hand and manages to grab hold of the bridge, preventing him from falling to his death. He sighs in relief as chucks the shotgun up onto the bridge, freeing his other hand to grab onto the bridge to pull himself up.

"I've never seen someone as lucky as you Chief." Cortana comments.

John quickly rose to his feet and turned to stab a combat form directly next to him. The creature kept swinging its tentacle like arms at him, and John stabbed it again and again. Finally, the creature fell to the ground and John savagely stomped on the creature with his foot. He then retrieves the shotgun. Judging by the weight of the shotgun, he determined the weapon to be almost full with approximately 10 shells.

John spins around to look at the zealot. The zealot is being swarmed by flood, and John races up with his shotgun and fires repeatedly. With every shot, a combat form fell. He approached the zealot and stood next to him. The zealot glanced at John to acknowledge him.

Less than a minute later, all the flood on the bridge are defeated, and the waves of flood abruptly cease. John turns his attention to his next foe: the zealot.


	3. Still enemies

Snow falls through the air as the wind collects it and blows it everywhere. Master Chief stands aiming his shotgun at the zealot, who stood three feet taller than him and outweighed him by at least 100 pounds. Armed with an energy sword, the zealot presented a massive challenge for John as he could not win a physical struggle with the alien if that should occur.

John fires his shotgun at the zealot, whose shields break. He fires again, but the shotgun is out of ammunition. The zealot lunges forward bringing his energy sword down from above, but John rolls out of the way and recovers to his feet. He swings at John again, who nimbly dodges the strike, but the zealot only feigned an attack as he slams his foot into John's head with a brutal kick.

John cannot react in time to defend himself against the kick, and he goes flying in the opposite direction for three meters and collides with a structure on the skybridge. John recovers, and slowly rolls over to see the zealot run at him with his sword raised. In a fluid motion, John draws his pistol, aims at the elite, and fires.

John realized the elite's head was armored, and it would take a dozen shots to bring the brute down with center-of-mass-shots, so he settled with shooting the elite's arm holding the sword. The elite drops his weapon in pain, but quickly recovers to kick the gun out of John's hands and grab and throw him across the bridge.

John slides on the bridge, but he gets back on his feet to see the elite once again run at him. Down to his last weapon, his knife, John quickly formulates a plan. He takes his knife, and throws it at the elite, but John starts running towards the elite as soon as he releases the knife.

As expected, the zealot dodges his attack, but similar to what the elite did to John earlier, John himself runs up to attack the elite. John throws a killer haymaker aimed directly at the elite's face, who is caught mid-dodge and unable to avoid John's attack. The blow sends the zealot reeling backwards and spinning around so that his back faces John.

Letting his instincts determine his moves, John runs up to the elite, jumps onto his back, and grabs the elite's head. John dangles his body onto the ground, forcing the elite's body to the ground and pulling John's own body towards the ground. John savagely pulls on the warrior's head with all his strength until he hears a loud crack, and the alien falls to the ground on his back, his neck broken by Master Chief. (lol ,05+ !NOITANISASSA)

John collapses to the ground, utterly exhausted. He breathes heavily as he stares up at the sky, watching the snowflakes dance and fall in the air. When he regains his strength enough to continue, John stands up and looks around to collect his knife and pistol, which are still on the bridge.

After this, John gazes at the zealot, who lies dead, and could not help but feel angry at the zealot for making him kill him after they fought the flood together. As with most thoughts that displeased he pushed the thought out of his mind, and turned to exit the skybridge at the far end and continue on his mission to disable the phase pulse generators.

THE END


End file.
